


An act of Lunacy

by Otherworldliness



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, ED: Aaron self harming and crying blahblahblah, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Me an intellectual: Aaron going insane and crying yeehaw, Tagged as character death but Rob's dead from the get-go, The Author Regrets Nothing, instead of watching ED be boring and make Aaron self harm read him go batshit instead, there will be a LOT of mentions of dead bodies in this if thats not your thing, whites aren't in the first chapter but will be mentioned later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-08-14 15:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otherworldliness/pseuds/Otherworldliness
Summary: Aaron Dingle knew loss, but this wasn't it.This was being torn into two pieces. This was a hand forcing it's way inside his chest and tearing his heart out. This was death.Until one day it wasn't anymore. It wasn't loss, though, or even grief.It was worse.or,Robert dies and Aaron looses his mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There shouldn't be anything in this chapter that'll gross you out if you read the tags, but for the next two I'll leave content warnings in the end notes. But I literally wrote this all today as a way of coping cause the seb scenes made me spiral so... bone apple tea.  
Also, if you read Reiteration, I noticed that the last chapter takes place on August 20th 2019, the day the embargos are dropped. I'm not saying I'm psychic, but the evidence would suggest otherwise.  
If you've read CAD... I'll explain at the end.

Aaron Dingle knew loss.

He'd lost his innocence when he was merely eight years old; ripped away from him in the darkness of the night by a man he'd once trusted.

He'd lost a, although terrible, home and a sister he'd barely been given the chance to know.

He'd lost his first love twice. Once through the sheer power of machines, crushing without discrimination between metal and bone, then again by his own hands.

He'd lost his family for a short time, too. He would never regret running to France and all the that being there taught him about himself, but he'd felt it the second his feet had hit foreign soil – the _loss _of them.

And he had felt loss enough by now to know each way it could possibly feel like: sometimes numbing, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes maddening. But always, always, there was sadness. Whether it was enough to make him shed tears or was so small it was simply eating away at the inside of his chest, it was there. Always.

But this time it wasn't. Aaron had cried, of course he had, cried for hours and hours and hours, but the sadness had never come. He'd even waited for it; laying in his – _their_ – bed for the whole day afterwards with a hand pressed against his chest as he anticipated the feeling seeping in. But it hadn't. And it never did.

Numbness was the next thing he'd waited for. Hoped for, after a while, because he knew he needed some sort of reason for his lack of feeling. But he realised quickly that this lack of anything wasn't what numbness was. Even when numb _something _was there underneath, like the phantom feelings you'd get after the dentist made your cheek numb; there was still some sort of feeling there, if you pressed down on the skin hard enough. For Aaron, though, there was nothing at all.

Maybe that's what it meant to be completely and utterly empty.

Then he'd waited for everything else he'd come to expect with loss, but none of it came. No sense of absolute overwhelmingness, no anger that came with madness, nothing. Until suddenly three days had passed since it had happened and the most Aaron could do to show he cared was get out of bed in the morning.

Aaron Dingle _knew_ loss, but this wasn't it.

This was being torn into two pieces. This was a hand forcing it's way inside his chest and tearing his heart out. This was _death_.

Until one day it wasn't anymore. It still wasn't loss, though, or even grief.

It was worse.

Robert Sugden had died on a cold night in November. They'd gone out for a drink together – just so they could enjoy being alone, Robert had said. Really it had been his way of trying to cheer Aaron up after Natalie's first round of IVF had failed, the news having almost broken him. But Aaron had let him convince him, with sweet words and kisses, that going out together was a good idea. 

How stupid he'd been.

They'd barely started their fourth drink when Aaron hadn't been able to stand it anymore and started pawing at him, desperate to go home. Even if the night hadn't ended like it did Aaron knew he'd have always remembered how Robert looked then: wearing his extra tight jeans and a blue polo shirt that showed off the strength in his arms, especially after he'd taken his jacket off mere minutes after they'd settled down in the bar. After the alcohol had hit all Aaron had known was that he'd wanted him, badly, and after a while Robert hadn't been able to pretend that he didn't want him too. In the end they'd agreed that Aaron would have a quick run to the loo while Robert tried to grab them a taxi.

It had been such a simple, easy discussion at the time. Something they'd both agreed on without so much as a second thought, and why would they have? It was a five minute piss.

And the biggest mistake of Aaron's life.

No one would ever really know what exactly had happened in those five minutes; everyone being too drunk or high or both to give any sort of clear police statement. But what they did know was that, somehow, a fight had started between two lads in their early twenties outside the bar and they had, somehow, ended up getting Robert pushed into the road and consequently into the path of a speeding Chevy.

Afterwards, they would tell Aaron that it was the blows to the head that did it – blows, plural, once by the car then again as he hit the ground – making his brain bleed and swell at a rate so fast that by the time they'd gotten him to hospital the damage had been done. But Aaron found that he didn't really care how, no matter how much the police explained after taking statements and the surgeons apologised after he'd passed away on the operating table. Dead was dead, and Aaron knew better than to expect the whys and the how's to change that.

(The emptiness helped, too. It was hard to care about any of that when he cared about nothing at all.)

And if there was one thing Aaron Dingle knew about dead people, it was that they needed funerals.

“I've ordered the flowers,” Vic said, rustling some papers around on the dinner table. “For both the coffin and inside the church. The woman on the phone said they should be ready in time for next week.”

“You're going to have to be the one to tell Bernice that, pet,” Diane said lightly, but the lines on her face were deep – as were the rings under her eyes. Aaron may have been empty but he wasn't blind, and Diane looked as if she'd aged ten years in a single night. “You know that she's convinced she can decorate the coffin single-handedly.”

Vic gave a small smile. “I'll visit her at the salon later today.”

Robert had only been dead for six days, but the Sugden's had been trying to plan this from the get-go. They'd not even pronounced Robert dead for a day when they'd shown up at the Mill, begging (ordering, really) that he come with them to the undertakers. If he'd had any will left in him he would've said no, but Vic had pulled him to his feet and out of the door before he could even find the words. Thankfully they hadn't wanted him to do much more than be there; allowing him to sit in silence while Vic took charge, doing almost everything except sign the legals – which were Aaron's to sign, due to his place as Robert's next of kin. He supposed it was her way of coping.

Still, they'd shown up almost every day since and, even empty, Aaron was short of patience.

“I met Harriet at the Café this morning,” Vic continued, “and she asked if we have any idea where...,” she faltered for a second, taking a deep breath, “where in the graveyard we'd like Robert to be buried.”

“Oh, with family surely,” Diane exclaimed. “I'm sure there's space next to or around Jack, maybe they can put him there?”

And that was just _it –_ where things changed. There was no lengthy or poetic way to explain it: one second Aaron was empty, and the next he wasn't. Like a white heat was burning him up from the inside out, forcing him to speak.

“What about Sarah?” he asked, surprising even himself. “Is there any way he can be buried with her?”

Vic and Diane gave each other a look. “They could,” Vic said, sounding like a mother telling a child _yes, we _ could _ go to the park, but I think it would be better if we went home instead._ “But he and Dad went through so much. I think... maybe it would mean a lot to the both of them, to be near each other.”

But Aaron _knew_ that wasn't the case. He'd spent so many hours, minutes, seconds consoling Robert over his Dad, holding him and kissing him and reassuring him time and time again. And that empty abyss inside of him recognised that, must have done, because in an instant it was as if there was a star collapsing in his chest; turning his blood into pure, blazing mercury as the power of it filled his body to the brink, threatening to burst through him. All he knew was that he needed to _get it out of him_-

“_He's buried with Sarah, or not at all,” _he burst, a part of himself pouring out as the words did. He hadn't spoken at that volume for days, and his throat ached and burned because of it; making him swallow. Vic and Diane shared a look again, but this one was wide eyed and open-mouthed. Shell shocked.

“Aaron-” Vic started, but the fire in him didn't give a damn about what she had to say.

“I _said_,” he almost growled, slamming his hands harshly onto the table as the sound of it vibrated through him, “that he's being buried next to his Mum. Where he'd ask to be, if he could ask for anything anymore. Did I make myself clear this time?”

Neither of them seemed to know what to say, either too shocked or too confused by his outburst to know what to do with it. Aaron merely sat there and waited while they looked to each other once more; silently communicating.

“I-I suppose I can ask Harriet if they can put him near her,” Vic said eventually as Diane gave a quick, tense nod in agreement.

“Good,” was all that he managed to say as everything he had been feeling slipped away from him, as if someone had poured a pint of water down his throat and put the fire out. All the energy he had left in him was used to sag back in his chair; folding his arms over himself in satisfaction.

The two of them excused themselves soon after, almost as if they were racing to get out of there and leave him alone. Before walking out the door, Diane turned to him with a concerned look on her face, as if she wanted to say something to him. Instead she just shook her head and left, closing the door behind her and leaving Aaron alone, still sat at the table.

In fact, he remained there for the rest of the day; not even moving when Liv came home from college. He found he could barely move as his mind was swarmed with thoughts and questions that tried to comprehend _what_ exactly had come over him and why. But hours of wondering seemed to make the hole inside of him expand, because by the time it was getting dark outside and Liv had come downstairs to heat up a ready meal (the only thing the two of them could make without burning the house down) he finally decided that it didn't matter. There wasn't a chance in hell that it would happen again, anyway. 

But that was just the start.

The funeral was on a Thursday, like all big events in the village seemed to be. As Aaron sat in his front-row seat in the Church, while Harriet read some sermon to start them off, he wondered why. He supposed it wasn't the nicest sounding word – _Thursday_ . It sounded pretty harsh, now that he thought about it. Dissonant, as Robert would've said like a proper dickhead. If they weren't all meant to sit in silence then he would've tried saying it, rolling the word around on his tongue, to see what it felt like: _Thursday, Thursday, Thursday_.

It was just like Robert to break the trend and die on a Saturday. He probably did it on purpose, just to be different. In fact, he would've hated that they'd done _this_ on a Thursday and ruined all the effort he'd put into dying. Maybe he should've said something to Vic about this too.

Harriet called Liv's name, snapping him out of his thoughts. Faintly, he remembered her telling him something about wanting to say a few words and for a minute he figured that he should probably listen, but the pictures of Robert they'd put up around the coffin held his attention instead. There were only three of them, one of Robert as a child with Jack and Sarah, a snapshot of him and Andy together in their teens, sitting on hay barrels in a barn that must've belonged to the Sugden's old farm, and a final one of him just before their second wedding; posing and smiling brightly at the bottom of the Mill's spiral stair case. All three photos were lovely, really, and the exact type of thing you'd expect to find at a funeral.

Then why did he suddenly feel so uneasy?

Liv was crying now, tears rolling like fat slugs down her face, and he felt rather than heard his Mum beside him whisper words of encouragement; soft hums rolling over him. But his suit had started to feel too tight and the air too thin, almost as if the actual molecules surrounding him had started to compress themselves against him, forcing him to look frantically around the room.

Sat on the row beside his were Vic, Diane and Bernice, all clutching tissues as they sobbed along to whatever Liv was saying. But behind them were Charity, Vanessa, Noah and Ryan – fucking _Ryan_ . He foraged through his memories for any sort of interaction the two of them might have had that could've earned him the privilege of being allowed to set a single _foot _in this Church.

But there were none.

His hands started shaking violently as he continued looking around: Matty, Marlon and Jessie, _Belle –_ half of the Dingle clan, really. All he could do as he was presented the faces in front of him was ask _why. _Why were they here? Why were they even invited? Why would they even want to come?

But just as quickly as he asked the questions the one, simple answer lit itself up in his mind like a neon sign: for him. They were there for him.

He couldn't _breathe._

Liv was stepping down now, wiping her eyes with her shirt sleeve as she came to sit back down next to Aaron. Harriet gave her a sympathetic smile and made to stand back at the front, but Aaron didn't give her the chance; standing up in the blink of an eye and putting a hand on her arm.

“I need to say something,” he said, still shaking. In his peripheral he could see Vic raise an eyebrow in confusion. In all of the funeral planning he'd stayed consistently quiet, but had still managed to insist that he didn't speak. That was the one thing – apart from the burial incident – he'd asked for. Now, though, he knew there wasn't a chance he could stay silent.

Harriet must've known that there was no way that she could deny a man from speaking at his husband's funeral, because she nodded slowly before taking a seat and let Aaron take the floor.

He took a deep breath. “I... I was looking around the room just now. At everyone here, I mean. And. And I realised something.” His words were coming out in disjointed stammers, so he took another breath and put his hands in the stand in front of him; willing himself to have the energy to say what he needed to say. “I know that Robert didn't have the best reputation around here, and that a lot of you probably have... _mixed_ opinions on him. And I'm not going to stand here and try and convince you all that he was perfect, or that the rumours you've heard are fake, because, yeah, for the most part he _was_ that person you all think he was. The liar, the cheater, the schemer, the greedy, money grabbing businessman – all of it. But what I _can_ tell you is that for the longest time – for most of his life, really – people haven't been allowed to, or haven't let themselves, see that he wasn't_ just_ those things. I think that might be why we lasted as long as we did, because I _knew_ that, I always knew. I knew that for every dodgy deal he made there were ten stupid, girly pop songs that he liked to play in the car. I knew that for every single bad word he'd ever said to me there were a thousand meals he'd made for me, because he'd known I'd had a bad day or just because he'd wanted to look after me. Because I knew that, despite everything he may have done, he was really just... _silly_ and _goofy_ and _funny, _and was full of so much love. So much love.

Can any of you even imagine that? Having a bond like that with someone, where only you really know them? Where you know that its you, and only you, that _gets it _for that person. Can you even imagine what that might feel like?”

The crowd of them had started to blur as his vision steadily became filled with tears, but he didn't need to see their faces to know that they couldn't have. No one could possibly have felt for someone as strongly as he and Robert had felt for each other, it couldn't be possible. He didn't even know if any of what he had said had made any sense, or if he was even on track to making his point, but Aaron was filled with so_ much_, half of which he couldn't even imagine identifying, and he needed to get it all out of him.

“You know, there are times when you all did get to see him – the _real_ him. I'm sure any of you that's been to a Dingle knees-up over the past couple of years know how much he liked to dance.” He heard Faith give a loud 'whoop' somewhere, the sound making him smile faintly. Faith was one of the few Dingles he hadn't been upset by seeing here. “And I'm sure you're all thinking that everyone loves a good dance when they've had a pint too many, but not my Robert. He was always dancing; you couldn't stop him. When he cooked, when he cleaned, when he got dressed in the morning. If there was a radio or a phone or a speaker playing music, then his body was moving somehow. And it's funny because I've never really liked dancing, or watching other people dance, but I always loved watching him. Even if I always told him he was embarrassing.”

A few people laughed at that, but Aaron frowned. This wasn't _funny._

“When people die, you always hear their loved ones say that they don't have any regrets about the time they spent with them, that they wouldn't change a thing. But I'd change something. Just one thing. I would've danced with him more.” The tears that had been collecting in his eyes started to fall hotly down his cheeks, letting him see the room clearly again. His Mum was crying now, too, but that just made his unease intensify – what did _she_ have to be upset about? What did any of them have? “That's all I can think about now, when the radio comes on in the car or at work, or when Liv starts blasting her playlists upstairs. That if he were there in that moment, then he'd be dancing and that I'd give _anything_ for that to happen one last time, just so I could dance with him. Wrap my arms around him and never let him go.”

Now that the tears had started they were hard to stop; his body drowning in sobs as he gasped and doubled over on the stand, as if someone had struck a blow onto his stomach. _Maybe this is the sadness_, he thought. But Aaron Dingle also knew sadness, and sadness was quietly crying into your pillow at night. This? This was crying as a replacement for _screaming_. This was Aaron trying not to throw the stand he was gripping into the crowd of his family and friends, trying not to tear every part of the Church apart with his bare hands. 

He wasn't sad, or grieving, or even empty. He was angry, and he was frustrated.

He was _vengeful_.

Gently, he felt a hand touch his arm; trying to guide him away from the stand and back to his seat. He didn't see who it was, didn't want to, but shrugged them off anyway as he aggressively stood back up straight again. He'd started this speech with a point to make, and he was going to make it.

“I'm not finished,” he said, low and menacing. The whole Church could've set fire and he wouldn't have stopped now. “I said I realised something when I looked around the room earlier – that none of you in here really knew him, or even liked him. And I've decided that that's fine, really, he didn't care if any of you liked him. He would've put more effort in if he had. But when I realised that it made me angry for a minute, because how _dare_ people that didn't like him even think about coming to his funeral, right? But _after_ that, I realised something else. Something that made me want to stand up here now.

I realised that it didn't matter if none of you liked him. And that it wasn't what I should be directing my anger towards. No, I realised that none of what you all thought really mattered anyway, because-” suddenly bubbles of laughter rose through him, making him erupt in a fit of giggles as the next few words left his mouth, “he fucking _hated_ all of ya.”

The laughter was near uncontrollable, leaving his body as if each individual laugh had taken on a life of their own. “I. I _can't_ be angry that you all hate him, cause he hated ya first. We-we'd come home after parties and throw ourselves onto the sofa, and he'd just go on and on about how he couldn't stand being around any of ya. He'd make fun of all the dumb things that were said or done, and we'd laugh together for hours about it, about how much he couldn't even bare to-”

“_Aaron_!” It was his Mum. “That's enough.”

“But it's not, though, is it?” he fired back. He hadn't felt this alive before in his life. “Really, I'd say this is the start.”

“Listen, lad,” Cain said, standing up from his seat at the back. “How about you and me go outside for a minute, yeah? Take a breather and calm down.”

Aaron nodded; the speed of it making his neck ache. “You know what, you're right. Someone should step outside – but that persons not gonna to be me. 'Cause that's the point, it doesn't matter if any of ya are here because you liked him; he wouldn't want a single one of ya here anyway.” He didn't give them a second to even process his words before he took the picture of young Robert in hand and launched it to the back of the room, making a loud _bang_ against a wall. “Everybody _get out_ !” Nobody moved. “I said: _Get_ . _Out_ . _Get out_ ! _ Getoutgetoutgetout _-” As he yelled and screamed he armed himself with the two other photos, holding them threateningly in the air as he watched everyone – even Liv – scramble from their seats and out of the Church, slamming the door behind them.

_Finally._

He dropped the photos. His body almost dropped, too, but there was one last thing he knew he needed to do. With all the energy he had left in him, he knocked the decorative flowers off of the coffin's lid and opened it up.

If someone were to look from a distance, then maybe they'd be able to pretend that Robert was only sleeping; like some sort of snow white dreaming in his glass coffin, waiting for Aaron to come along and wake him up with a kiss. But up close his body was unnaturally pale, and the left over cuts on his face from being hit looked_ wrong_ somehow; as if they'd been stuck on him with glue.

Even so he still looked beautiful, dressed neatly in his wedding suit with both his watch and his ring on display. Aaron gently ran a hand down his chest; smoothing out creases that didn't exist. Really, he just wanted to touch him. How long had it been now, since they'd touched each other?

“Hiya,” he muttered quietly, as if he were sharing a secret. As if Robert was going to answer him back. “I got rid of them all for you. It's just you and me now, exactly the way you'd want it to be.”

Adding his second hand, he continued to trace and caress Robert's body, feeling down his arms, his chest, across his waist. He felt harder and colder than Aaron remembered, more like a slab of ice than a human body, but in the moment he didn't care; feeling far too deliriously happy to give a second thought to the unnatural state of Robert's body. Because that's all it was – _Robert_, and all that mattered was that Aaron was alone with him again.

“Look at you. My gorgeous husband.” He moved both his hands into Robert's flat hair and thread his fingers through the strands, noticing that they looked closer to white than blond now. “You'd be having the time of your life with all of this, wouldn't ya? At the state I'm in over you. Never really did tell ya how much you meant to me. How fit I thought you were.”

Mindlessly he left a small kiss on Robert's forehead, just so he could remember what it felt like to do it every morning before work, but immediately found that he couldn't stop himself from doing another, and another, and another. He kissed him until there wasn't a trace of Robert's face that hadn't been touched, until sobs were once again retching out of him, until he was licking the fallen tears off of Robert's face. Until his energy had completely melted away, leaving him crumbled up on the Church floor.

“I'm sorry,” he kept saying as he lay there, not really knowing why. “I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

And it was like that when the world went black.

“Aaron?” a timid voice asked. “Aaron, are you awake?”

All he could do in response was let out a harsh moan. His head felt like he'd drank the world's largest glass of beer the night before and his throat felt tight and restricted, as if a rope was tied around it. Luckily for him, though, the sheets that surrounded him were warm and the mattress he was laying on felt like something akin to a cloud, making him feel as if he could sink into the bed and be cured of all his pain. There was just one problem.

He didn't have a clue where he was.

Groggily, he opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of a white wall. Not the most helpful sight. After blinking a few times, he trailed his gaze around the room and took in the pictures on the walls, the large wardrobe and chest of drawers, and the books on the shelves until he stopped himself at the door, where Liv stood half-in and half-out of the room; looking about as nervous as her voice had sounded.

Home. Somehow, he was home.

“Aaron?” Liv asked again, and this time Aaron just about managed to let out a strangled, “yeah?” before the pain became too great.

“I was just-” she stopped herself and started fiddling with the door handle, averting her eyes from him. “I wanted to tell you that Chas said that it's okay for me to stay at the pub for a few nights, just in case you woke up and worried about where I was.”

He nodded, only half listening to what she was saying. Instead he was staring at the wardrobe on the other side of the room, a plan forming in his mind.

“And... and I just want you to know that it's alright if you're struggling. You can always talk to me, ya know? You don't have to let it get this bad again.”

He nodded again.

Liv started to slip from the room, but Aaron broke free of the plans circling his mind just enough to remember that there was something he'd wanted to ask. “Liv?”

At hearing her name she burst back into the room like a cannonball, and Aaron chose to ignore the wide-eyed, hopeful look on her face. “What happened?” he asked her, needing to swallow between words. “How... how did I end up here?”

Her face fell. “Um. Well, we left ya alone for about half an hour before Vic got really mad and stormed back in. She said that she wasn't going to let your mental breakdown ruin her brother's funeral – it was almost kinda funny.” Aaron frowned at that and Liv immediately corrected herself, “Not that it actually was, 'course. But then, um... she basically broke the door down and most of us stayed back cause we didn't want to get hit by anything, but even from way back we could still-”

“Still what?” he prodded.

“Hear the screams,” she admitted reluctantly, looking younger than Aaron had ever seen her. “I never went in, but apparently they found you on the floor just... screaming your head off. Sprouting gibberish, too. Your Mum wanted to take ya to the hospital, but everyone else figured it would be better if they just got you home.”

_Screaming_. He put a hand to his throat, rubbing it gently. “Thanks, Liv,” he said, absent-minded, feeling himself slip back into tiredness; head spinning.

He knew that Liv stayed at the door until he fell back to sleep, feeling her concerned eyes watching him, just like he knew that whatever had happened at the funeral wasn't over. There was a fire inside him now, a furnace burning steadily as it waited for something – or _someone_ – to pour in the coal it needed to burn through and out of him.

And something told him that it wasn't going to be easy to put out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron continues to spiral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only non-spoilery warnings for this chapter is Sadness, the use of the word 'yearning' and the briefest of mentions of suicide - aka Aaron saying that it's something he's not planning on doing.  
Also Aaron streams Taylor Swift, because he's a man of fine taste.  
As always enjoy.

It was December 1 st  . There was nothing about the day that made it special, no anniversary or birthday that needed to be celebrated, but for some reason it was the day that the entire village decided to start putting up Christmas decorations. And it wasn't something as simple as everyone deciding to hang up a few fairy lights here and there, the village had managed to turn it into a whole event. By the end of the day the village always looked like an exceptionally large elf had thrown up all over it; the Woolpack looking like a bright, shinning beacon in the centre of it all. Just that morning, as early as eight o'clock, he'd run into David _(literally_) when he'd been heading over to buy a carton of milk, the other man having not seen him behind the gigantic box of lights and tinsel that he'd been carrying outside; the inside of the shop already being filled with all sorts of festive decorations. Maybe if this had been any other year Aaron would've laughed, would've been in there to buy some last minute decorations himself, maybe even have offered to help him carry the box outside.

Because Aaron had always been one to believe in putting your Christmas stuff up early. Just last year he'd gotten Robert and Liv up at first light and forced the two of them to help turn the flat into something resembling Santa's Grotto – although he'd had to settle for Robert's white, plastic tree in the end, a real one being too far out of their price range. Even as a teenager he'd been silently ecstatic over the thought of Christmas, when he would try to subtly push Paddy to join in on the December 1 st  tradition during the time that he'd lived with him. He'd spoken about Christmas a lot with his counsellor, or more specifically the ones he'd had as a child, and together they'd come to the conclusion that Christmas represented a time of peace for Aaron, a light in an otherwise dark period of his life. Christmas hadn't only been the one time of the year that he could guarantee seeing his Mum, but also a promise of good behaviour from Gordon, the holiday spirit seeming to infect him enough to keep his hands, among other things, to himself. Aaron had cherished this time of year because it was the one collection of childhood memories that hadn't been ruined somehow.

But if his child abuse had turned Christmas into Aaron's favourite holiday, then Robert's had done the exact opposite.

Robert had never spoken about what Christmas as a child had been like, although from the photos both Vic and Diane harboured Aaron could assume that there had been happy ones at some point. But the ones Robert _had_ spoken about, the ones he'd given to Aaron through whispers between bedsheets late at night, had told stories of a boy kicked out of his home with nowhere to go, of the holiday season passing with nothing to show for it. Paired with the Christmas that had past two years ago, where Robert's life had hanged in the balance, it wasn't exactly a wonder why Robert had never shared Aaron's enthusiasm for the holiday.

He knew that if Robert were here now he'd be complaining, feet up on the coffee table and his arms crossed in a childish pout. Maybe if he was then Aaron would've wrapped tinsel around his neck and drawn him into a kiss; a more persuasive tactic with Robert than any words could be.

But he wasn't. And he couldn't.

So it was in Robert's memory that he cancelled Christmas this year. And it was in his memory that he'd stuck his foot out in David's path, tripping the man up and leaving the contents of the box he was carrying all over the floor. It was also in his memory that he left all of the Mill's decorations boxed up and untouched in the loft upstairs; the flat being left as a desolate, Christmas-less wasteland – the first Christmas in years that Aaron hadn't gone along with the tradition. He'd decided that if Robert wasn't here to protest grumpily against the spirit of Christmastime, then Aaron would do it for him.

It was because of the Village's yearly tradition that Aaron was so shocked to have a knock on his door that afternoon. Even more so when he saw that it was Ellis, hands in his pockets and shuffling his feet awkwardly as he and Aaron came face to face at the front door.

The two of them hadn't had a real conversation since well before Robert's death, but Aaron couldn't decide if it was that, the natural nervousness that came when you saw someone who you knew was grieving for the first time, or because Aaron was dressed entirely in Robert's clothes that Ellis seemed so out of place. (It was the first thought that had popped into his head when he saw the wardrobe that night after the funeral. Robert had always pushed Aaron to dress up more, to be more eccentric in his clothing choice. He hadn't listened when Robert was alive, but he was listening now.) The jeans had been cuffed several times at the ankle, his husband's legs being much longer than his own, and the floral shirt he was wearing just a little too tight around the chest, but Aaron had thought that the end result had looked fine in the mirror that morning. It must have been the massive change in style that was making Ellis so uncomfortable, then. Aaron didn't think he'd ever worn something with flowers on it in his entire life.

Until now, that was.

“Y'alright, mate?” Aaron asked, giving his (neighbour? Friend? Employee?) one chance before kicking him out.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, visibly pulling himself together. “Yeah, fine. I'm fine.” He cleared his throat. “I understand if this is a bad time and that you probably have a thousand other things on your mind right now, but I was wondering if you had any idea about when you're going to re-open the scrapyard?”

Aaron frowned. Honestly, the scrapyard even being a thing that existed was something that had completely escaped his mind. “When did I close it?”

In the corner of his eye, he saw Ellis' hand twitch in his pocket. It occurred to him suddenly that Aaron's clothing may not have been the only reason for his anxiety. “Um, about two days after... after Robert died. You called me, remember? You told me to send out an order that was already finished then tell clients about what had happened; that you weren't going to be working for a while. Any of that ring a bell?”

It didn't. But he supposed it didn't really matter. “And you, what, want me to re-open? I thought you were only working part time now that you and Billy were starting that business anyway.”

“I was, but... that hasn't been moving as quickly as we thought it would,” he explained, looking sheepish. “And lets just say that I'm a bit tight on cash at the minute, even more so now that Christmas is coming up. I don't want you to feel any pressure or anything, but I could really use the work.”

He thought back to the last memory he had of the scrapyard. They'd been there the day before it had happened, both him and Robert. It had been a Friday and Aaron had fought against the biting winter air as he'd finished off a job outside, not wanting to push any work back for the next week, while Robert had completed some paper work in the warmth of the Portacabin. Although the old car he was scrapping was considerably small, the job had taken most of the day due to his husband's insistence that he come inside; coming out and wrapping his arms around him every so often as he complained that Aaron's hands could be doing better things than freezing in the cold. He'd only humoured him once – a monumental achievement in those days, when they'd relatively always had the place to themselves – but it had been enough for Robert to keep him occupied for almost an hour.

Aaron bit his bottom lip to stop himself from smiling at the memory. The scrapyard had always been a fundamental part of their relationship, and every memory he had there was laced with Robert – to the point where Aaron's brain compartmentalised them all into the stages of _them_: the scrapyard during the affair, the scrapyard after the affair, the scrapyard when they were boyfriends, the scrapyard when they were fiancés and on and on and on. Now that he thought about it, the scrapyard had been the first thing in his life that had no 'before Robert' that he could associate it with. There may as well have been a stamp over it claiming it as Robert's.

So then what was the scrapyard without him?

“Y'know what,” he said, “I'll go down there tomorrow. Look over the state it's in and see if I can sort it out.”

Ellis let out a massive, all teeth grin as he visibly relaxed, his hands coming out of his pockets and his shoulder's dropping. “Thank you so much, mate. You have no idea how much this'll help me out.”

Aaron smiled, feeling the corners of his mouth strain tightly. “You'll hear when I'm done.”

If Ellis noticed the strange choice of wording, he didn't mention it, instead giving Aaron a friendly, if awkward, slap on the shoulder before saying his goodbyes and leaving Aaron alone to plan.

He went alone that same night, nothing but a lighter and a container of gasoline in hand. Briefly, he recalled the way the flames had looked as they'd engulfed the £100,000 after Robert had thrown it in; imagined what Robert's Audi would've looked like when Chrissie set it ablaze.

If the scrapyard had to go down, then he knew that it needed to be in flames.

Almost carelessly he set the gasoline and lighter onto the ground, leaving it there as he went inside the Portacabin. It wasn't as if it mattered if either of them broke or spilled – the whole place would be covered in both soon enough.

Nothing of Robert's remained in the Portacabin, but he didn't see the harm in checking anyway. Jimmy had done the clear out himself before sombrely dropping a box of it all off at the Mill, filled with all of the notepads, pens, photos and things that Robert had left there over the years. It had been weeks, but Aaron still hadn't had the heart to go through it all yet. Maybe he never would.

As he looked over the desks and shelves and cabinets, he was struck by just how wrong it felt to be there when Robert never would be able to again. Every corner of the place held some sort of memory, thought, feeling that belonged to Robert, and he didn't have to focus very hard to be bathed in them all – the coffees Robert would leave on his desk, the kisses he would press against his cheek before leaving, the weight of his body as he fucked him against the wall. For a moment, he felt mournful of all that he would be burning away.

But that wasn't the point of this, to erase it all. No, what Aaron was doing was putting a full stop next to it, ending it, making sure that there was no way that he could make a memory here that couldn't be tied back to his husband. If anything, the dazzling kaleidoscope that Aaron had been hit with proved his point – the scrapyard was Robert's, and Robert's alone. All Aaron was doing was ensuring it stayed that way.

He marched back outside and picked up the gasoline, holding it firmly as he took of the lid and started to pour. Each surface that he covered held another memory, another feeling, and he was confronted with them all as he poured and poured and poured, drowning them all.

_Robert kissing me Robert's arm around my shoulder Robert talking about Seb Robert scrapping a car Robert laughing Robert smiling Robert crying Robert putting a hand into my trousers Robert holding my hand Robert telling me he loves me Robert Robert Robert Robert Robert Robert -_

Chest heaving with the force it took to take each breath, he threw the container away, not bothering to see where it fell as he scrambled for the lighter. He'd left a trail of gasoline from the gate to the scrapyard, making sure that he could stand a safe distance back. Trying to keep his hand steady, he pressed his thumb down on the switch again and again, taking a few turns to get the lighter to ignite, before dropping to his knees.

And letting it blow.

“Nappies are in the bag,” Chas said, “along with the spare formula, in case you mess up the first time round.”

Aaron took the bag from his Mum, curling the strap of it over his shoulder with an ease that made his chest ache. “Y'know I _have_ looked after babies before, right?” Aaron asked, not wanting to say Seb's name. “More than once.”

Chas scoffed, turning to check on her son (and Aaron's newborn brother) from where he was laying in his pram. “Yes, but it's been months since then. No one would blame ya for forgetting something.”

“Pretty sure babies work the same now as they did a month ago,” he retorted. “If anything you should be worrying about yourself, having – what was it again? Right – _decades_ between babies. We should watch over ya, you might put the nappy on the kid's head.”

“Oi!” She slapped him lightly on the arm. “That's enough lip from you today or I won't let you have him. You should be grateful that I'm giving ya something to do, now that the scrapyard's being investigated. Although I don't know what kind of insurance payment Jimmy and Nicola are hoping to get out of it.”

Aaron had been planning to just leave the place to rot, but Nicola had been absolutely fuming that some 'drunken teenager', as she'd put it, had defiled Home James. The pair of them had been at his doorstep for days trying to get him to show some sort of similar outrage to the whole thing, but Aaron had made it very clear that he had no plans of re-opening the business or pressing anyone for money. But he was willing to let her try to milk the insurance company dry if it meant that he was left alone.

As for Chas, it had been a complete surprise when she'd arrived at his doorstep the day before demanding that he babysit. She'd been surprisingly absent from Aaron's life since the funeral, when he had been sure that she'd have had some choice words for him after what he'd done, and the only contact he'd had from her was updates about Liv, who was still living with her, or when he'd occasionally venture into the pub after realising that he had nothing to make for dinner. It wasn't until after the news of the scrapyard's fire had broken out that she'd decided to make an effort.

Not that he could blame her. He knew how his Mother worked – she liked to think that she could fix things for him, shield him, offer him protection. But she couldn't fix this for him, not in any way that mattered. So he imagined that the news about the scrapyard had been euphoric for her. Finally, something that she could_ do_ something for.

Even if that something was paying him to look after his own brother, but he supposed in her mind anything was better than nothing.

“Whatever they're hoping for has nothing to do with me,” he said dismissively. After seeing the way Chas' face dropped, he changed the subject, “So that's everything yeah?”

His Mum nodded. “Just about. Obviously you can call me or Paddy if you need anything at any time.”

“_Obviously_,” he mimicked, much to Chas' disapproval. “Relax, will ya? I know what I'm doing. It'll be fine.”

Aaron decided to go on a walk, hoping that the rhythmic sound of pram wheels on gravel would send his little brother to sleep like it had done to Seb countless times before. He pushed him round all the familiar country roads surrounding the Village, stopping sometimes to rest his legs and to admire the landscape around him, even if it was all diluted and grey due to the winter time. Usually a nice, long walk by himself would clear his mind and calm him down, but the further he walked down the paths and roads that he and Robert had walked down together so many times, the more he was filled with something that he hadn't felt in years – _longing_. Yearning, even. But it wasn't burning and all consuming like the anger and frustration he'd been feeling for weeks, it was almost mellow in the way that it spread through his chest. Like a block of ice was being pulled around inside his veins; dulling him down like winter did to the trees, like death had done to Robert's hair colour.

He supposed it was the closest to sadness that he was going to get.

When he had circled round back to the main road leading to Emmerdale, he stopped and leant against a fence looking over the hillside; watching the clouds roll by while the baby gurgled away in the pram beside him. Seb had been the same when they'd taken him on these walks – loud and expressive. Watching with clear eyes at everything that he past with a wonderment that only a child could possess.

_A child_. Aaron's heart convulsed in his chest; he put a hand to it, feeling it beat away through his coat. Doing what Robert's couldn't anymore.

He looked to his brother. “Me and Robert were going to have one of you, ya know,” he said, feeling less embarrassed at talking to a baby than he probably should've done. “Not _you_, obviously. But one of you – a baby. I wanted another little boy, someone our Seb could be friends with, but Robert was desperate to have a little girl. I used to catch him staring at little dresses when we were clothes shopping, and his eyes would be so big that I was sure they were gonna fall out of his head. I wish – I wish I could've given that to him, his little girl. More than anything.”

Another small gurgle came from the pram, and Aaron decided to take it as a condolence.

“Before all of this happened I wanted a child so badly. I'd look at all of Seb's things that had been left behind and I'd just – I'd just_ want_. So much. So much that I thought it was gonna kill me at one point. But now,” he let out a dry, humourless laugh, “now the thought of having one makes me wanna throw up. 'Cause really what I wanted was a child with _Robert_. To be a parent with him. Before Robert the thought of having kids had never even crossed my mind, but he made it seem possible. And now without him it all feels wrong.”

Suddenly, the wind started to pick up, making Aaron raise his coat zipper up higher and check the blanket in the pram. He quickly checked the forecast on his phone, which told him that if he didn't start to head back now then the two of them would be caught in the rain. So it was with a quick pace and his hood up that he pushed the pram back towards the village.

He had another two hours until his Mum and Paddy were expecting their baby back, so he decided during the walk that he was going to bring him back to the Mill. Some of Seb's old toys were still there, after all, so it wasn't as if he'd have no ways of entertaining the child there.

He wasn't prepared for the scene he found when he got back.

A tow truck was parked up the drive, with the presumed driver of the truck standing next to Robert's car while having some sort of heated discussion with Pete – _Pete_ of all people. For a moment he just stood at the end of the drive in shock before his brain caught up with what was happening.

It was _Robert's_ car.

“Hey!” He called, leaving the pram up the drive as he jogged towards the two of them. “What's happening here?”

“And you are?” the truck driver asked him, looking more than annoyed.

“The owner of this house,” he explained as he nodded towards the Mill. “As well as the owner of that car you're about to tow.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “I was told Robert Sugden was deceased.”

“He is. But I'm – _was_ – his husband, so that car's business is my business.”

“If you wanna repossess the vehicle then you'll have to pay off the loan,” the man explained, to which Aaron nodded vigorously. He hadn't even thought about touching Robert's car since the man died, but for some reason the idea of loosing it felt like the ground was being knocked from under him. “_After _I've removed it from the premises.”

That was when he snapped.

“_Listen here_,” he lunged for him, but Pete's arms circled him; holding him back. “If you even _think_ about even touching his car, I'll kill you. I'll fucking _kill you_! Do you-”

“Aaron!” Pete cried out, trying his best to pull Aaron towards the house. “Just calm down, yeah? Yelling at him isn't going to help.”

He forced himself out of Pete's grip before turning like a whirlwind towards him. “Oh, yeah? Then what have you been doing that's so helpful?”

“_Trying_ to explain to him that this was what was gonna happen if he took the car.” The two of them turned to look back at the truck driver, who had started to edge backwards; looking alarmed. “Just let him take the car, then you can buy it back. They're not gonna scrap it if they know that someone's interested in repossession so you have time to get the cash together, alright? We can sort this out easily if you just calm down and let the man do his job.”

He flickered his eyes back and forth between the man and the car. A part of him knew, deep down, that what Pete was saying made sense. That he could buy the car back easily if he was given the insurance payment on the scrapyard.

But the other part of him, the part of him that had stolen cars with Ross Barton and broken into Home Farm, was wondering what Robert would've done.

“All of his stuffs still in the car,” he said, thinking quickly. “At least let me remove it all before you take it.”

The driver probably just wanted this to be over and done with because he agreed rather quickly, nodding as he took a large step back from the car and out of Aaron's way. Slowly, as not to arise suspicion, Aaron took out his keys, unlocked the car and opened the driver's door. He only made it look like he was reaching inside for a millisecond, though, before shooting like a rocket inside the car, closing the door and pressing down on the locks.

“_Oi_!” the man called, running up the car and banging a fist on the window as Pete put his head in his hands in the background. “Get out of this car now or I'll ask a policeman to do it for ya!”

Churning his teeth together, he put a firm hand on the steering wheel as the other made the car come to life, the engine's purr sounding like a threat. The man's eyes widened as he realised what Aaron was planning to do, and he couldn't help but smile at the fear in his eyes. _Good_, he thought. _Serves you right for trying to take him away from me_.

Giving the man only a second to move, Aaron shifted the gear into drive and slammed his foot down on the gas, forcing the vehicle forward at lightning speed as he skimmed past both the man and his truck; nearly hitting both of them.

He didn't even register the pram, still sat on the top of the drive.

The rain sounded like bullets pounding against the roof of the car, each little hit seeming to get closer and closer to breaking through. As he laid in the driver's seat, not really knowing when or how he'd put the seat back, he wondered if that would be such a bad thing – if loads of bullets suddenly shot at him. If death would be better than whatever _this_ was.

Not that he was going to kill himself. He'd had this conversation with himself weeks ago and he knew, if there was some sort of afterlife or greater resting place, that Robert would never speak to him again if he did. And he couldn't imagine a Hell worse than that.

There had once been a time where he imagined that Hell was what he was doing now – sitting in a car all alone while Pop music played from the car's CD player. It was on a low volume and could only just be heard over the rain's own music, but he could feel the beat of it in his chest; heavy synth sounds filling him up. The CD had started playing as soon as the car had started up and Aaron had driven and driven until all the songs had played, despite hating almost every single one.

_Almost_.

One song, though, had randomly and inexplicably made him _hurt_. He didn't remember much from the drive, but he remembered this – hearing the lyrics to the bridge of the song and almost driving straight into a tractor; having to swerve messily in a figure eight to avoid it. And that he'd had it on repeat for what felt like hours now, only moving from where he laid to put the track back to the start.

The funny thing was that he'd heard the album before, if only in snippets. It had played the first time he'd gotten back into this car after their break up, when Aaron had teased Robert for still having an interest in Taylor Swift after all these months, then again countless times after that, although only usually for one song before Aaron switched it to the radio.

He wondered how many times this song had played without him really hearing it. He wondered how many times it had played and Robert had.

“I don't even know what to say to you right now,” said Chas, and Aaron had to agree.

They'd all stormed into the Mill – Chas, Paddy, Liv, Vic and Diane – and forced Aaron onto the sofa before surrounding him, preventing him from making a break for either the stairs or the door. Aaron didn't think he'd ever seen any of them look this pissed off in his life, but even if they hadn't he would've been able to guess that this was leading to an argument.

“Okay?” he said after a moment of them all staring at him, expecting some sort of reply. “And whys that?”

He watched as Liv and Vic both widened their eyes in shock, while his Mum put a hand to her mouth, as if she was trying to hold the words back. Paddy put a hand on her arm, trying to comfort her, but she flinched away from it.

“Aaron,” she started, voice heavy. “How did you think we'd react to what you did yesterday?”

_Oh_. He rolled his eyes, bored. “If you're talking about Robert's car then I've already sorted it, it's fine. They're gonna-”

“_No_,” she said with a force in her voice that had never been directed towards Aaron before. It made him feel small in a way he hadn't in years. “No, Aaron that's not what I'm talking about.”

Frantically he searched his mind for something he had done yesterday that would've made her this mad, that would've forced people who cared about him to be here now.

But he couldn't. And they could all see that he couldn't.

“Pete was very thankful for the babysitting money we paid him yesterday.” Aaron froze. “Was a shame that you couldn't be there to drop him off.”

_Shit. Shit shit shit._

“Mum, look-”

“You left him on the side of the road,” Paddy interjected. “All alone in his pram. Anyone could've taken him – they probably _would've_ if Pete hadn't been there. What – what were you _thinking_?”

Aaron knew that he was supposed to feel ashamed of himself. That he was supposed to feel guilty. That they were expecting him to fall to his knees and beg them for forgiveness, maybe shed a few tears as he admitted that he had been _wrong_ to do what he did.

Instead he stood up.

“I was _thinking _about Robert,” he said, getting right into their faces. “I was _thinking_ that I was going to lose one of the few things of him that I have left. I was _thinking_ about what Robert would've wanted me to do.”

Chas and Paddy both opened their mouths to argue against him, but it was Vic who got their first; stepping in front of him with much more confidence than a heavily pregnant woman should have. “What he would've _wanted_ you to do? He would've wanted ya to leave your own brother on the side of the road?”

Aaron's heart may as well of stopped in his chest. Ever since the funeral – since he died, really – he had kept himself safe in the knowledge that every move he made now would be one that Robert would've wanted him to make. The burial site, the funeral, the scrapyard, the car, he wouldn't have done a single one of those things if a part of him didn't believe that Robert wouldn't have approved.

And now this _pretender_, who never cared to know him deeply enough, thought she had the right to challenge him? Had the right to even _think_ that?

“You think he wouldn't have wanted it to be me that owned his car?” he spat. “You think he would've wanted me to just – let them take it away? Let them make it into scrap? Is _that_ what you think he wanted?”

“Honestly, Aaron, I don't think it would've been,” she said, each word feeling like an individual slap to the face. “I think he would've wanted you to have it, sure, but to do what you did to keep it? No. Not ever.”

“Then that just proves that you never knew him as well as I did.”

She laughed in his face. _Laughed_. If she wasn't pregnant, he would've hit her. “What are you even talking about?”

“I'm talking about all of you, and the way you've been acting!” he said, the furnace inside him filled to the max; spitting out embers as it burned. “I'm talking about the way you all cried and grieved one day then felt nothing the next. I'm talking about how everyone in this bloody village has come up to me and told me how sorry they all are, that they think it's just so _awful_ that he's dead, as if half of them didn't want him dead at some point. I'm thinking about how you,” he span round, pointing to Chas and Paddy, “not even two years ago laughed at the thought of him dying – begged for it to happen – then had the audacity to sit at the front row of his funeral. I'm talking about how Graham stole his business from him them sent me a card saying _sorry for your loss_. I'm talking about how everyone can stand to move on, to celebrate Christmas, to forget about him as if his death didn't knock my whole world off it's axis.” He ran out of breath; chest panting and heaving as if he'd ran a marathon. “I'm saying that none of you couldn't possibly have cared about him like I do. Because if you did then none of you would even be able to stand in front of me right now.”

Everyone stood there in silence, letting his words sink in. Aaron felt satisfied that he'd made his point, and was just about to kick them all out.

But then Liv spoke.

“You're wrong,” she said, voice small.

He blinked at her. “What?”

“You're wrong,” she repeated, louder this time. “Because _I _cared about him. Even when I was mean to him, even when he messed up, even when I didn't really think he was being a good person I still cared about him. Still _loved_ him. And if you'd bothered for just a second to look at the people around ya and hadn't been so caught up in your own grief you would've been able to see that him dying almost made me drink again.” The confession made something pang in his chest. He ignored it. “You would've known that it was Chas and Paddy that helped me, that taught me how to grieve properly. How every single person in this village made sure to be there for me. That they could've done the same for you, if you'd let them.”

He didn't know what to say. “Liv-”

“No, you don't get to stand there and blame all of us cause you can't handle the thought that you took Robert for granted,” she snapped. “You don't get to ruin his funeral, burn down the scrapyard – cause literally everyone knows that was you, by the way – wear his clothes and steal his car then act like we're the ones not coping with this properly.”

She sped out the flat, leaving the front door open and gaping like a mouth in her wake. Silently, Vic and Diane followed her without sparing a second glance his way. Chas and Paddy stood by the door and looked at him sadly.

“You need help, Aaron,” she said. “You need to speak to a grief counsellor, or to your usual one, or to someone online.”

Aaron said nothing.

“We'll come round tomorrow to check on ya,” she continued. “Maybe then we can start looking at our options, yeah?”

With that they left him alone.

Rain, soaking through his skin right to the bone; leaving him trembling.

The smell of mud – the _taste _of it, clogging up his throat.

A slick, cold moisture against his skin, getting under his clothes and in his hair, burying itself under his fingernails.

Aaron awoke to the sound of his name being called. It was a far off sound, someone shouting it from the distance, but it was enough to make him open his eyes, the darkness of the night greeting him as he did so.

The first thing he realised was that his body was cold. The second was that he had no shoes on.

The third was that he was outside, completely by himself.

“Aaron!” the voice came again. “Aaron are ya out here?”

He tried to respond, but found that he couldn't as some sort of solid was stuffed in his mouth, making him choke and gag. As he desperately tried to get it all out of him he realised, whatever it was, it was all over him – the smell of it overpowering him as he struggled to get up; his arms and legs weak from what felt like over-use. But what had he been doing that took so much energy?

As the voices – he could hear more than one now, all of them calling for him – became louder and louder, he attempted to blink, to move his head, to try to make out anything at all.

In front of him, he could just about make out what looked to be some sort of box; small and rectangular in shape. He blinked again, faster this time, rubbing his eyes despite the fact that his hands were covered in the strange substance, doing whatever he could to just _see_.

He wished he hadn't.

_Robert Jacob Sugden_

_Beloved Husband, Brother, Father and Friend._

“Aaron!” the voices finally reached him, and with it warm arms and hands that covered him; helping him stand.

Now that he was higher up and had the aid of the torches his saviours had brought, he could see more clearly where he had been laying. A large, human shaped imprint covered the ground, looking to be maybe two to three inches deep. Whoever had made it had had a clear goal in mind, had put literally their entire body into making it.

Robert's grave. He'd been trying to dig up Robert's grave.

A blanket was hastily thrown over his shoulder's as a towel was carefully rubbed against his head and face. The care and comfort it provided made him feel nauseous.

“I think I need help,” he muttered to no one in particular.

“We know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery warnings include: Aaron setting fire to the scrapyard and Aaron committing a wuthering heights and trying to dig up Robert's dead body so that he can hold it one last time. Romance, baby!  
The Taylor Swift song is 'Dancing with Our Hand Tied' from her reputation album.  
And Pete's in this for the one reason that I love Pete and also to fuel my personal theory that when Ryan Hawley DOES return to Emmerdale, it will be to play Pete - the role he's wanted this whole time.  
Follow me on Insta @Emmerdalefanswildin, since we only have a few months of all this left.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo this took ten times longer than it needed to.Turns out writing someone getting better is harder than writing someone go crazy.  
For the anti-Seb crazies, he features in this chapter a lot.  
For the anti-Rebecca's, she dies in this chapter. HURRAH.  
For the anti-Vic's, Aaron is nice to her in this chapter.  
As always, enjoy.  
CAD is up next.

“So Aaron, how are you feeling today?”

Well. That was the question, wasn't it?

“Fine,” he said, tense. There was a clock on the far wall that looked like a cactus and every time it ticked Aaron felt more compelled to tear the thing off, the sound of it making his skin itch. “Though I'm sure you're gonna tell me that I'm not.”

The woman sat opposite him said nothing; simply shrugged her shoulder's and sat back in her seat. His Mum had told him her name about a hundred times before dropping him off – it was something plant-y, like Oak or Lily – but he hadn't listened enough to remember it. He wished he had now, just so he could throw it in her face with some sort of insult.

“Well?” he asked after a few seconds of silence. “Go on then. Ask me why I'm here like you don't already know.”

Even if the idea of being counselled on how to grieve properly was entirely new, Aaron _had_ been to counselling before. And he wasn't stupid, either. He knew how this worked.

Her expression, however, didn't change. “I do know. But I'd like to hear it from you, if you don't mind.”

_I do mind_ , he wanted to say. _I mind very fucking much._

But his family had made him practise this, pulling the words out of him like knives wedged into his skin. Because it was all about_ words_, or so the online forums his Mum had been scrolling through said. He would never be able to get better if he couldn't admit that how he was acting was wrong.

So he leant forward in his seat and clasped his hands together. “Last November, my husband Robert was hit by a car and killed. Me and him had barely been married a year and losing him was...,” he ground his jaw together, the word his family had chosen to describe it feeling all too little and all to big at the same time, “_hard_. The two of us were always joined at the hip so suddenly being without him has... forced me to find a new sense of purpose.”

“And what would you say that new sense of purpose is?”

“Being a dickhead, mostly,” he answered bluntly, hoping to get a laugh.

She didn't give one.

“Right,” she said, rolling it around in her mouth. “Now answer me again, but like you mean it this time.”

Aaron frowned and sat up straight, attempting to put on a serious face. “I've been... acting out. Pushing my family away. Not going to work. Dressing differently-”

“Who's idea was it for you to come to counselling?” she interrupted him suddenly.

“Mine,” he lied. She hummed thoughtfully and started tapping a finger against her chair. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Sighing, she considered him for a minute; looking him up and down as if she didn't know what to do with him. “What I _mean_,” she said carefully, “is that I've seen more effort put into delivering lines from a GCSE drama student.” Aaron would be lying if he claimed that that hadn't stung – he'd put a lot of effort into his serious face. “Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful that you've decided to ask for help. Too many don't even get this far.”

“But?” he asked, sensing it.

“But I can't help you unless you actually _want_ my help.”

And then Aaron was back there again – in the mud, clawing at the ground like a man possessed. He didn't remember much about what had led him to go to the graveyard that night but he'd remembered one thing, hours later when hundreds of blankets had been draped over him yet he'd still felt cold: that he'd just wanted Robert to hold him. To pull Aaron's body on top of his like he used to, fitting his head in the crook of Robert's neck and tangling their legs together while Robert gently stroked his back. The thought of it had made him ache all over; almost making him consider getting up and forcing his way back out there again.

There had been times when Aaron had been afraid of himself, of his own thoughts, but never so much so as he had that night. Simply questioning what he would've done had he actually gotten his hands on Robert's body was enough to make him want to be sick.

“No,” he said suddenly, swallowing around the taste of dirt in his mouth. “No, I – I _need_ it. I need you to help me.”

“Aaron,” she sighed. “You know that I'm aware of your past experience with counselling. And _I_ know that any counsellor worth a damn will be able to tell you that what you want and what you need are sometimes two completely different things.”

“You – you think that I _want_ to be like this?” he spluttered.

“Sometimes we don't want to let go of our grief,” she explained, “because we think that if we do then we're abandoning those that are gone. Or because we like it, that safety blanket that refusing to let go of someone gives to us. We like not having to face the possible pain that moving on can entail.”

And as much as the memory of that night terrified him, he felt relief. “So, are you saying that we should cancel our sessions?”

“No,” she smiled. “You can come here for all ten of your sessions if you like, and we can talk about your new 'sense of purpose', as you put it, for as long as we can. But how much progress you make in them is going to be completely up to you.”

“I don't think I can keep going to counselling,” Aaron said. He was in the Woolpack back room with his Mum, standing against the side in the kitchen as Chas made them some tea. She'd picked him up from his session almost an hour ago and neither of them had said much since – until now. “It's not going to work,” he explained hurriedly, keeping his eyes to the floor. “And the rest of ya shouldn't waste your money on a lost cause.”

In the end the whole family had come together in true Dingle fashion to pay for Aaron to be seen privately, pulling in a few favours here and there that he didn't even want to _think_ about, while Charity had even gone as far as to host an event at the pub to pull in the cash (with her getting what was left over, of course). Aaron had wished he'd have been able to be mad at them all for it, especially after them treating him like an infant for the entirety of Christmas day, but he'd known that Robert would've told him to accept it. They'd been calling it a birthday present, after all.

Now, his Mum turned to face him. “You've been to counselling before,” she said, her voice pitched high with exasperation. “We know that it helps you. Why wouldn't it this time?”

_Because Robert's not here this time._

“'Cause that was about my mental health – something that they can diagnose, something that they can _treat_. It's not like I'm depressed-” his Mum gave him a look at that, “I'm just trying to find ways to cope.”

“Setting _fire_ to your livelihood isn't coping, Aaron!”

“I know that now! OK? I know.” And he _did_ know, how could he not have? But it wasn't his mind that was controlling that furnace inside him. He didn't actually think anything was. “And now that we all know it'll be easy to stop me, won't it? It's not like I've done anything since you all started watching me.”

(That wasn't exactly true. A week ago he'd almost snapped a poor woman's head off in Hotten for complimenting his wedding ring – not that his Mum needed to know.)

“Look,” she started. “You're a grown man, and I'm not going to force you to go to counselling if you don't want to. But you've been to _one_ session. Can't you at least try one more before deciding it's all useless?”

Aaron thought about it, going to another session and talking through everything he'd done in the same, rehearsed way he'd gone through the first one. He imagined the counsellor giving him advice, and he imagined himself not taking it. He thought about how easy it could be.

But with that came thoughts about what could happen if he was honest. If he was caught of guard in a session and, like a thief in the night, his own words were stolen from out of him. He imagined being given advice that he might actually take.

And he couldn't decide which version was worse.

His phone rang before he had to decide.

Rebecca White died in a car crash in January 2020.

She wasn't even supposed to be allowed to drive anymore, not after an assessment done on her condition just two months before. She'd written several reminders in her diary about it – and if that failed then she must've figured there was always Ross, wasn't there? To remind her that she didn't have a licence anymore. To remind her that it wasn't safe.

But Ross had had Moses round that day, and he'd thought it'd be nice to take him and Seb to the park. Rebecca had been having a lay down, anyway, or so he'd tell them later. It was only going to be a short trip, no longer than a quick, fifteen minute run around, and the park was so close down the road.

So close down the road that he hadn't taken the car.

Ross would later tell the police that Rebecca hadn't been the same since Robert died. Maybe she'd still loved him, deep down somewhere, or maybe she'd lost one too many people in her short life. Maybe there's a limit we all have of how much loss we can take, and we all just break down when it's surpassed. Maybe in the end she'd been empty, too. Regardless, her memory had slowly been getting worse; sometimes leaving her not knowing who she was at all, let alone if she could drive.

Which was how she ended up driving on the wrong side of the road in a dual carriageway, swerving violently to avoid the oncoming cars. It was easy to imagine what happened next. Aaron could, anyway. He'd had his own run ins with cars.

(It was always cars, wasn't it? Why did it always have to be cars?)

As much as the village as a whole had liked Rebecca, her passing hadn't been the main source of gossip after the news hit. Aaron would hear their whispers following him like an echo whenever he walked main street, chasing after him wherever he went. All of what they said and whispered and wondered could be boiled down to one, single question:

What were they going to do about Seb?

The last time Aaron had seen Seb had been on his second birthday. They'd seen him briefly that morning, just to drop off a present and a card; not having the time to stay for the small get together with Seb's nursery friends. They couldn't have been there more than half an hour.

Coincidently, that had also been the day Robert Sugden had died.

Aaron had run through all of the normal, guilt-ridden questions a couple – and _only_ a couple – of times afterwards: The '_h_ow_ were we supposed to have known that it would be the last time Robert would ever see his son_?' The '_How could we have guessed that after that Seb would never see his Father again_?' But, mostly, it was the '_how _couldn't _we have known_?' that had played inside him again and again, shaking him to his core. They couldn't have, he knew that now, but that didn't stop Aaron's stomach turning over and his hands shaking whenever he heard his step-sons name.

There was a reason he hadn't been talking about Seb.

Seeing him now on his own living room floor was disorientating. He was older now than he had been when he'd lived with him; more attuned to the world. There was more of a precision in the way he played with his blocks on the floor, a careful consideration in his eyes as he attempted to stack them. It reminded him of Robert.

It made him want to throw the blocks through the nearest window.

“Rebecca has an Aunt on her Mother's side in Australia,” the social worker, who was responsible for Seb's presence, said. “We've been in contact with her and she's said that she'd be open to taking him.”

“Then why hasn't she?” Aaron asked numbly, keeping his eyes on Seb.

“Australia's a long way away, for one. We'd like to try and keep him in the country if we can.” He felt the social worker shift beside him. “And... there's your husband's will.”

That made Aaron snap his head towards her, feeling that familiar anger that always came when someone mentioned Robert begin to brew. The social worker, to her credit, didn't look all that fazed. Someone must've warned her.

“It's stated very clearly that if anything were to happen to him then you should be made a Legal Guardian for Sebastian,” she explained carefully. “Of course, there was nothing there that was legally binding, but we knew we couldn't make any decisions without at least asking you if you wanted to go for custody.”

_Custody_. It was such a small word, but it felt big enough to crush him.

“Didn't know Robert had a will,” he said instead of giving her the response he knew she wanted.

“There should've been a reading of it that you'd have been asked to be present at...,” she started, then stopped when she clocked onto the tight, rough grip he had on his knees. “It was made around two years ago, if that rings any bells. In the summertime.”

It did – the gassing, Rebecca going missing, their engagement. Really, he should've guessed that Robert would've done something like this. Seb becoming an orphan had always been one of his greatest fears – a fear that, he supposed, was now a reality.

“What about Ross?” he asked, knowing full well that she knew he was deflecting. “He was a Dad to him for over a year. Doesn't he want any sort of access to him?”

“No,” she said. She opened her mouth as if to continue, then closed it again, and Aaron knew then that whatever else she had to say would've made him want to go for Ross' knees with a baseball bat. “Sebastian only has three options, unfortunately.”

Aaron didn't know if he'd agree with the term _options._ It was more like Seb was stuck in a hole with molten lava speeding towards him from three different angles: the unknown relative from the unknown country coming from his left, the foster care/adoption system from his right, and the Dad that had gone insane barrelling straight towards him. No mater what option was chosen, Seb was going to get burned; it was only a question of which fire would be less painful.

What the social worker asked next was, “What do you want to do?” but the question he heard was, “_What would Robert have wanted?_”

He only had one answer for both.

When the surgeons had told Aaron that Robert had died, he'd fallen to his knees.

His family had fallen with him. Chas had been on his right, he remembered faintly, holding onto him with everything she had. Paddy had been on his knees behind the two of them, a hand on both their shoulder's. He couldn't remember where Liv has been, but he knew she'd been there, he remembers hearing her sobs somewhere close to him.

And that had been the thing – they'd all been crying. Chas, who had once hated Robert with a passion that could rival the greatest Romantic poet, had been releasing the kind of tears that made your body move with it, and Aaron could remember how she'd pulled his body in time with her tears in the same way the moon moved the ways: back and forth and back and forth. He remembered the timid, quiet sounds of Paddy's sadness from behind him, filling in the gaps of his Mum's cries like background music. Even a few nurses had let out a few, solitary tears at the sight of them all on the floor.

But instead of crying, Aaron had realised how _odd_ the whole thing had been.

And that was how it really started. Not because Aaron was angry that Robert's own sister didn't know where he'd like to be buried, or because Robert wouldn't have cared for the guest list at his own funeral. But because Aaron was finally realising things.

He'd made a decision during those minutes on the hospital floor. A decision he intended to live by, now until the day he could finally be with Robert again.

A decision he was now going to have to take back, if he wanted to do the one thing he knew Robert would want him to.

“I want to have full custody of Seb,” he said quickly, pushing the words out. “Robert's son. His Mum's died and I'm the best option for him.”

“Do you want him because you actually _want _him, or because you think you're the best option for him?” Willow (he'd taken extra care in remembering this time) asked.

“No. I want him because Robert would want me to want him.”

“And what Robert would've wanted – that's important to you?”

“Yes,” he replied, the most honest thing he'd said in his sessions so far. “It's why I kicked everyone out of his funeral. It's why I'm not going to re-open the scrapyard. It's why I wear his clothes, and I drive his car. It's... it's _everything.” _The speed in which he spoke increased with every sentence he said, the relief at being honest and the pure need that he hadn't known existed to let it all out of him filling the void that had left him empty for so long. When he'd imagined doing this, he'd been sure he'd feel nothing but betrayal. How could he have been so wrong?

“And it's why you're here now?”

He nodded. “I was thinking about what you said about wants and needs. If I'm honest, I don't think I'll ever really _want_ to get better, even though I know I need to. Not for myself, not in the way you were saying. But if I can want to be better for that little boy? Then that's enough. It has to be.”

Willow said nothing for a moment, opting to make a note of something in the little clipboard on her lap. When she was done, she looked up at him and smiled encouragingly.

“Talk to me about Robert's funeral.”

The Woolpack looked like someone had taken a shotgun full of balloons and fired it at the buildings front – or that's how it looked to Aaron, anyway, as he walked down the road towards the pub, Seb (who had put up a right fuss at the thought of getting in a pram) thrown over his shoulder and a birthday card in hand. The balloons ranged from blue, to pink, to purple; not the kind of colours he would've thought Liv would want for her eighteenth. Although, he supposed that they hadn't thought that Robert wouldn't be there, either. This was a birthday full of the unexpected.

Not even a millisecond after opening the door, he was hit with an overwhelming flood of warmth from all angles. It looked like Marlon had been tasked with the party snacks because the next thing he noticed was the strong, sweet smell of sugar in the air, something that Seb noticed, too, and made a little cooing noise at. Half of the Dingles – hell, half the _village_ must've been squeezed into the place, as Aaron had to manoeuvre himself like a soldier in a minefield in his search to find his sister.

After several near-misses with pint glasses and one-too-many sad looks from villagers he'd, quite frankly, forgotten even existed, he found Liv propped up on the far edge of the bar. She was in deep discussion with Charity as she sipped from a glass of champagne, and as Aaron took a moment to watch her he was struck by just how _healthy_ she looked. Not just happy, although she was that, too, or mature or anything else that you were supposed to look like on your birthday, but _healthy_. It was only now that he could appreciate just how much the opposite had been true for the last few months.

He wondered how on Earth he ever could've missed it.

“Ya know, almost everything in me is telling me to take that glass off ya,” he joked, gaining her attention. “Feels like just yesterday you were begging Mum to give you something stronger than orange juice.”

It only lasted a second, but she looked at him nervously. Aaron knew he didn't have the right to feel hurt by it, not after how he'd been behaving, but the feeling was still there. “Technically it _was_ yesterday,” she joked in turn, extending a hand out to meet Seb's excited grappling for her; letting him take hold of an index finger. “Wasn't expecting you to have him so soon.”

“We're just having a practise run at the moment, aren't we mate? They're letting me have him full time for now, with check-ins every couple of days. My counsellor has to give updates on our sessions too, to make sure I'm stable. But apart from that I think it's all going well.”

“Is it wrong to say I was hoping you'd end up with him? Even when...”

_When Robert was alive._

“Well I'm not one to speak ill of the dead, _but._..” Liv laughed at that, giving Aaron a surge of pride. He'd expected this to be more awkward, but then again he supposed the more serious conversation hadn't even started yet. “Should you really be drinking that?” he asked as she took another sip from her glass, feeling like a fraud for even trying to look like a caring brother.

Liv shrugged. “I spoke to Chas about it. We've decided to use this as a trial run, to see how I cope having one glass of something un-vodka related.”

“That's good,” he said, meaning it. “I'm glad they've been looking after ya.”

They shared a smile, but it felt heavy, as if it was tinged with something.

“Do you wanna go in the back for a chat?”

Aaron nodded.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, Aaron waiting for Liv to say what she'd been trying to since the day Robert died and Liv waiting for the words to come. He'd given Seb to an enthusiastic Faith before following Liv into the back room, knowing that there were more than enough people in there to keep the child occupied while the two of them said what they needed to.

“When Robert died,” Liv started suddenly, “it was like... like I was back with Sandra again.” At the look of horror on Aaron's face, she clarified, “Not because I felt that the Mill wasn't _home_ or 'cause I thought I needed to look after ya – but I might've done, if I'd stayed. And because... you're my _brother_. And you're a good one. But sometimes Robert felt like more than just brother. He was like-”

“A Dad,” Aaron finished for her.

She nodded. “And without him here everything feels wrong, ya know? Like we're out of balance.” Aaron couldn't agree more. “And I knew that by staying with you after the funeral I'd be putting myself back into a place I didn't want to be. So when Chas offered me my old room here, I knew I had to accept. And at first it was weird, not living with you in the way we had been for years, but after a couple of weeks... I started to appreciate it more. A new routine. It turns out having adults that are actually more than a decade older than you telling you what to do works out quite well. Who would've thought?"

“You're never going to move back into the Mill, are you?” he guessed, the reality of what she was saying dawning on him.

“I'll sign the place over to you and everything, if that makes you feel better.” It didn't, and that must've been obvious because she gently took his hand; curling their fingers together. “You've been a parent to me for so long,” she said. “I think it would be nice if you were just my brother now.”

It was inappropriate, but Aaron couldn't help but snort. “Since when did you get so mature?”

“Since when did you wanna be a single dad?”

_Fair point_.

“What I said the other week... about no one else caring about Robert the way I do-”

“Don't worry about it. I know you weren't exactly in the right frame of mind.”

“Doesn't make it any better.”

“No,” she agreed. “But I... okay, maybe I don't _understand_ why you said it, but I _know_ why you did. And I think that's a good start.”

“We've talked about everything you've done because you think Robert would've wanted them – but not about _why_ you think this is something you need to do.”

“I don't know how to explain it.”

“Just try for me.”

“I... spent a lot of our relationship angry.”

“Why?”

“Because I never really felt like I could trust him, not until maybe the last year or so that we were together. And that's not because of the cheating – really, this started before that – but because it never felt like me and him were forever. We always felt... _fragile_. And at the time all I knew was that somehow he was going to do something to end it.”

“And now he has?”

“See, that's the thing: _I_ have. _I _was the reason he wanted to go out. _I_ was the one that couldn't wait to have a piss, and _I_ left him alone that night. Maybe I wasn't the one speeding that night, but I might as well have been.”

“And this is a way of punishing yourself for that?”

“It's a way of making myself _better_.”

“Do you think you wasted it then – the time you spent being angry with him?”

“I do. In that moment, after they told me he'd gone, I realised that everyone had. We'd all spent so much time yelling at him and hating him and taking him for granted that crying that he'd gone felt _meaningless_. And I think that maybe if I'd spent more time_ listening_ to him and doing the things he wanted to do then I wouldn't feel so fucking empty all the time.”

“Emptiness is apart of grief. Anger is apart of grief. But trying to appease those things isn't going to be what makes them go away; _fighting_ them is.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

“This week, I want you to do anything that you want. Not something Robert would've wanted, or even Seb, just you. It doesn't have to be something massive, or even something you do more than once. Just try doing one thing, then come back next week and tell me how it made you feel.”

When Willow told him to do whatever he wanted, he didn't think she quite meant put his house up for sale. Yet here he was, mere days later, carrying a 'For Sale' sign down the Mill's driveway.

For hours after the session ended, he'd thought about what he wanted to do. He'd wandered aimlessly around the flat, trying to remember what he'd liked to do before all of this happened, had even jokingly asked Seb. But nothing had come to mind. It wasn't until the next morning that he finally had a epiphany – after almost falling on his face while coming downstairs.

Because he'd always hated those stairs. Not only were they far too complicated, but they were ugly too; sticking out like a sore, metallic thumb in the corner of their living room. And it was after that that he started to notice more things:

He hated the pillars, that took way too much living space. He hated the dark blue on all of the walls; casting them in depressing lighting at all times. He hated the kitchen drawers. He hated the weird, rustic props and toys that Robert had splattered all over the place.

And if he hated it so much, then what was the point in staying there?

As he hammered the sign into a patch of grass at the top of the drive, he heard a voice call out to him.

“I know we've lost a lot of people over the years, but I never thought I'd see the day you left Emmerdale,” the voice – Pete – said, walking towards the Mill and stopping, Aaron noticed, a safe distance away. “Unless you're moving back in at the pub?”

“Nah,” he huffed out, hammering the sign one last time. “I just wanna get out of here. Move somewhere new, into a house I like.”

“Are you sure the social workers will be alright with that?” Pete asked, genuine curiosity and concern lacing his voice.

“Why did you help me?” Aaron couldn't help but ask, deciding to face the thought of the social workers another day. “When they tried to take Robert's car.”

“As far as I remember, I was there first. It was nowt to do with you.”

“But why?”

Pete looked almost sad as he took a small, tentative step closer to him. “I know you think we all hated him, and a lot of people did, don't get me wrong, but not _all _of us. Not me, anyway. I actually thought he was alright half the time – especially when he came to matches and stuff. Either way, it's not like he ever really did anything to me, did he?”

“Really?” he asked faintly, more shocked than he really should've been at the idea that not everybody had hated his deceased husband.

“Really.”

Suddenly, Aaron was overcome with a wave of guilt. “I think I've made some mistakes these past few months.”

Pete laughed, “Haven't we all?”

“I think I've been directing my anger at myself to other people,” Aaron confessed.

“Like who?”

“Vic and Diane, mostly. I'll stand by what I said to my Mum and Paddy, but them... I said some things to them I shouldn't have done.”

“Like the issue with the burial?” Willow prodded.

He thought about the rant he'd gone on and cringed internally. “Among other things.”

She hummed. “So now that you've realised this, what do you do about it?”

Luckily, he already had an idea.

Vic had given birth to her son – Finn Robert Sugden – back in late January. As far as Aaron knew he was a happy, healthy baby, although he'd barely laid eyes on the child once.

Until today.

“He's gorgeous,” Aaron said, because he was.

“I know,” Vic gushed proudly, rocking his pram softly from side-to-side.

They were sitting in the Cafe, Brenda no doubt listening in intently from behind the counter. Aaron had messaged her and asked to meet for a coffee the day before, and after some reluctance (that she still seemed to have now, really) she agreed to meet him.

“If you're here to have another go at me then you can save it,” she started, jumping straight to the point.

“I'm not,” he promised earnestly. “I'm here to apologise.” That caught her attention. “I'm not going to say that I don't think that I knew him better than you, cause I did, or apologise for how badly him dying effected me. But saying that you didn't love him enough, or even care about him, was wrong and not true, and I'm sorry that those things even crossed my mind.”

“I'll ignore that bit about you knowing him better than me and accept the apology,” she said, although it sounded like she was joking. Kind of. “I know I wasn't always the first to support his actions, but that doesn't mean I never loved him, Aaron.”

“I know,” he said. “And I want to make it up to you.” From out of his coat pocket, he pulled a white envelope and slid it across the table to her. “I think that just about makes it up.”

Her eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head when she opened it up. “You can't be serious.”

“Deadly.”

“Aaron that's-” she stopped, rummaging through the wads of cash. “I – I can't even begin to count it.”

“It's what was left over from selling the Mill. There should be enough there to fill in for all the birthdays and Christmas's Robert's not going to be here for.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You can't really be expecting me to accept this.”

“No,” he said. “I'm forcing you to.”

With that he was out of his seat and barrelling towards the door, taking large strides towards the car – still Robert's, always Robert's – that was packed and ready to go, Seb safely secured in the back seat.

“You're going _today_?” Vic called, slightly out of breath, by the Cafe door.

“Yep,” he replied, nonchalant. “Mum's already got my new address, she can give it to you if you want it.”

“But-” she spluttered. “But what about your family! Don't you want Seb to grow up with them nearby?”

As she spoke, Aaron took his place in the driver's seat before rolling up the window and putting a single arm out, feeling every bit like a character in the end of a movie. “I think I'm doing something I want to do for the first time in months.”

He didn't give her a chance to reply before driving away.

Aaron Dingle knew loss.

But he also knew how to deal with it.

By no means was he better, not even close.

But he was getting there, and for now that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaron is still very lowkey crazy at the end of this, if you couldn't tell by that scene with Vic.  
He'll be okay, though... I hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment crazy shit you want me to make Aaron do and I'll try and include it.  
CAD readers: I'm about half way through the next chapter, but I need to be honest - I don't have a lot of motivation to write it. Between it flopping hits wise (fics can flop, right?) and Ryan leaving I'm struggling to find reasons to want to write it, ya know? I definitely WILL, cause I'm not a quitter, but there's a big chance it's gonna take a while. Sorry.


End file.
